Midland Festival Ballet to host RDA Southwest Festival

Mar. 3—For the first time in its history, the Midland Festival Ballet will be getting the honor of hosting the Regional Dance America Southwest Festival.

For three days next week, about 400 dancers along with 200 teachers, musicians and choreographers will be in the Tall City as the Wagner Noël and Bush Convention Center will be hosting the multiday event.

The festival performances will take place at the Wagner Noël, beginning at 7:30 p.m. March 9 and wrapping up on March 11.

During the day, classes and workshops will take place at the Bush Convention Center.

Regional Dance America is a nonprofit, national organization that's dedicated to increasing the accessibility of dance in America and increasing the quality of dance, both from an education standpoint as well as a performance standpoint.

"Midland Festival Ballet has been a participating company member since 2000," Midland Festival Ballet Communications Director Pearl Wamsley said. "Thanks to our beautiful facilities and the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center and the Bush Convention Center, this is the first time that we're able to host it. These facilities will help accommodate the number of participants."

The roughly 600 participants will be coming in from Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana and Arkansas.

The participants come from 18 total dance companies across those four states including Midland Festival Ballet.

Dancers will be performing new works of various dance styles each night at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center.

For Midland Festival Ballet, the event is beneficial on numerous different levels.

"Getting to see all the different pieces every night is always really fun," Wamsley said. "You learn a lot and you get to see a lot. It's a lot for three days. Being a part of RDA has contributed heavily to the girls in development at Midland Festival Ballet. We're excited that we can share our local resources with our fellow company members. That's exciting."

On March 9 will be the Emerging Concert which is comprised entirely of never-before-seen dances created by up-and-coming choreographers.

The March 9 concert will be accompanied by the Americana band Angel and the Badmen.

At 7:30 p.m. March 10 will be the Showcase Concert and the finale will be the Gala Concert at 7:30 p.m. March 11.

The Gala Concert is comprised of this year's "Stand out" dances, which is based on the factors of great execution, beautiful artistry or brilliant choreography.

"We're excited to show our local audiences that for the last 20 years, our company has been traveling to go to this competition," Wamsley said. "We've had to travel and go elsewhere for it so this year, they get to see what we go do every year."

This year's Gala Concert will be accompanied by the West Texas Symphony.

"That's big on a lot of different levels," Wamsley said. "We get to work with the West Texas Symphony quite a bit. It's a great partnership for the past 30 years."

RDA festivals do not typically have a live music element. Some of that is because of the logistics.

"You have different out of town companies coming in," Wamsley said. "You don't have a lot of rehearsal time. You have minutes. It's not like a normal show. That's stressful for the dancers and musicians. You don't get a lot of time together."

However, after getting together with the West Texas Symphony, a plan has been mapped out to make it work.

"We asked (the West Texas Symphony) if we could we make it work for one evening, provided they fit a certain number of musicians and public domain music and a piece that the symphony can learn in a short timeline and they said yes," Wamsley said. "We've had to juggle a few new variables as far as festival timelines go. But we think it's going to work. ... I don't know how many of the companies get to perform with the live music. Live orchestra always makes dancing so much more special. It adds a bit to the energy. We're very happy about this."

West Texas Symphony Executive Director Ethan Wills also spoke about the excitement of next week's collaboration.

"For us and for the ballet, this has been an interesting, innovative approach to getting live music with ballet companies," Wills said. "The Midland Festival Ballet is very passionate about education. We here at the West Texas Symphony are also passionate about education so this provides a lot of students from around the southwest, the opportunity to perform with live orchestra. They may never get that opportunity again. We're gracious for our funders out there who know what we provide and encourage us to keep providing live music and we're committed to that."

For more information about next week's festival, visit the Midland Festival Ballet Company's website at tinyurl.com/5n78k3b9.

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